Appeal No. 2004-0434
Application No. 09/836,686
III. Whether the Rejection of Claim 25 Under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 is proper?
It is our view, after consideration of the record before us,
that the evidence relied upon and the level of skill in the
particular art would not have suggested to one of ordinary skill
in the art the obviousness of the invention as set forth in
claims 25. Accordingly, we reverse.
With respect to dependent claim 25, Appellant argues at page
12 of the brief, "nowhere does Berstis or Abecassis disclose or
suggest transmitting a file to 'a Secure Digital Music Initiative
[SDMI] compliant music player' as recited by the claim."
We find that SDMI is a specific standard in the art, and we
agree with Appellant that Abecassis and Berstis do not teach or
suggest using the SDMI standard. We note that Appellant has
admitted that the SDMI standard is a known standard. See
Appellant's specification at page 1, lines 17-20. While an
argument might be made that an extension of the process of claim
23 using the SDMI standard is obvious in the extreme given
Appellant's admission, no such rejection was made by the
Examiner. We leave it to the Examiner to decide if a rejection
of claim 25 is appropriate under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious
over the combination of Abecassis and Berstis and Appellant's
admitted prior art.
12
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007